


Appropriate Punishment

by makesometime



Category: And Then There Were None (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fingerfucking, Just two terrible people planning a murder, Murderers, Non-Canon Relationship, Older Man/Younger Woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makesometime/pseuds/makesometime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A body, slumped over a table. A noose hanging, swaying, inviting her in. Blood, so much blood and none of it pure… a hand on her thigh moving higher and higher until she gasps and jerks and… </i>
</p>
<p>Vera exhales heavily, opening her eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appropriate Punishment

The day dawns far earlier than Vera is awake to appreciate its coming. Clouds and rain keep her in bed longer than she would have allowed in the past. Too much to achieve, too much to miss. Her lethargy is as new as her current surroundings, her current companion. As new as her second life. 

She is slow to rise, any haste chased away by the coolness of the sheets beside her. Wargrave has been gone for some time, back to the bench, back to his enablement. 

He’s able to exercise his authority and quench the desire that she frustrated and hasn’t yet relieved; that horrid, glorious need to see the guilty punished. Meanwhile she finds herself in some twisted version of purgatory. Fate doesn’t smile so kindly on her. It doesn’t hand her means and opportunity on a gleaming silver platter.

Still. She supposes that’s at least fair. She didn’t _earn_ this. She charmed her way into the devil’s bed, but that doesn’t give her the right to his help.

Her footsteps are light, ghostlike, as she passes through the house. She goes through the motions of getting ready for the day without any enthusiasm. Her mind is too distracted, she is unnecessarily dismissive to the young woman Wargrave employs to keep his house. She feels… absent. Unfulfilled. 

She takes her breakfast at the same table the judge vacated earlier that morning, pulls the discarded newspaper in front of herself as she chews on a slice of toast. It's full of bad news, as always, but now that excites her. Every bad tiding, every tale of unresolved circumstances and frustrated justice is full of desperate potential. 

Something has coiled within her since their return, a pulsing darkness deep in her gut, drawing any lingering goodness in and away from the surface and leaving her untroubled by its presence. She still feels, still aches, still knows. This is not... _right_. She cares… but then she doesn’t. She accepts and she moves on.

The island changed her. And she is quite decidedly fine with that fact.

Finishing her tea, Vera finds herself gathering the paper as she retires upstairs, to take a seat in her study (the room repurposed from an unused bedroom). 

She reads a book, for a time. Perhaps a few hours, perhaps more. Someone brings her some food but she doesn't really touch it beyond little bites here and there. The tale isn't even that enthralling; she realises halfway through that she's simply been going through the motions of taking in the words, instead turning to filling her head with fantasies and plotting.

_A body, slumped over a table. A noose hanging, swaying, inviting her in. Blood, so much blood and none of it pure… a hand on her thigh moving higher and higher until she gasps and jerks and…_

Vera exhales heavily, opening her eyes. She shakes her head to clear it, doesn't dwell on what her subconscious is trying to say. There is little point, for he has shown no such intent in her presence thus far, despite his declaration on the island. Beguiling. She likes that word now. Such a compliment from a man who doesn't seem the type to give them freely. 

Setting down her book without marking the page, Vera rises and moves to the desk by the window. She abandoned the newspaper there on her arrival and glances over at it now, irritatingly drawn to the deep black typeface. As if it holds some kind of suggestive power over her. 

Without conscious thought, she pulls it closer. 

Her eyes light upon a notice. It’s small, insignificant, not unlike its subject. A technicality has released a man most everyone in society assumed was guilty, though who not one person thought deeply of once the breakfast had been cleared away. Vera pauses, tracing her finger in a wide circle around the few column inches the article takes up. Her chin rests on her free hand as she melts back into a fantasy, picturing righting a wrong, taking revenge…

_Justice._

The sound of the front door draws her from her thoughts, the dark, swirling mess of potential. So many choices. So many elegant ways to enact the resolution the universe demands, far more poetic than the noose.

She rises from her seat at the window to see Wargrave ease himself out of the car with nary a wince. Today must be a good day for the pain. He nods to the butler and then lifts his chin to regard the front of the property. His eyes find her, waiting for his attention. She smiles, presses the same finger that has just sealed a man’s fate to the glass. 

He smiles then, as if he can read her as openly as one would a book. It sends a shiver down her spine, that look that suggests warm pleasure and pride mixed with a kind of menacing eagerness. As if he has been waiting for this moment.

A flicker of uncertainty bothers her as he enters the house and disappears from view. How long has he been waiting for this? Has she been disappointing him, every day that he returns home with the sense memory of the black cap fresh on his head? She suspects he would have tired of her long ago had that been the case. He doesn’t strike her as having endless patience for a silly woman who didn’t fulfil the role in his life she claimed she would.

Vera waits until she hears the faint voice of their - his - no, _their_ butler dismissing himself to see to their evening meal. With a deep breath she forces her shoulders back, smoothes the skirt of her dress.

She snatches up the newspaper and descends the stairs.

-

“How was your day?”

Wargrave looks up at her question, settles his cane against the side table to his left. He has removed his overcoat but is otherwise quite unchanged from the man who would walk the halls of law and righteousness. That makes something throb deep inside her… intriguing, appealing before it fades. 

He smiles, beckons her closer with a crook of his handsome fingers. She follows, eagerly almost, a pull between them that she is finding harder to deny. He quirks a brow at the hands she holds behind her back, but doesn't comment for now. 

“It was tolerable.” He gives a faint shrug, looking out at the dim afternoon light. “There was little to take interest in.”

Not a murder case then. Or perhaps a solid defense. A shame, really. But it explains the tense posture, his lack of relaxation. The decanter of whisky sits untouched beside his chair. Signs she's learnt to recognise as pointing to a frustrating day. 

“I might be able to provide some diversion.” Vera says after a moment, her hand clenching a little harder on the paper. She hears the rustle, imagines she can feel the ink coming off onto her fingers, marking her. 

Wargrave looks at her with a singular kind of interest that might just send her heartbeat racing, if she was feeling so inclined to read it that way. “I expect that you might, my dear.”

She feels the crease between her eyebrows, not quite a frown. Sees him chuckle in response, and hold out a hand. 

“Show me what you are so intent on hiding, Vera.”

His query returns her good spirits and she smiles brightly as she passes him the paper. She waits, providing no input. Hoping he sees it too. 

“Ah, yes.” He adjusts his hold to better focus on the article. “I recall this case. It wasn't brought before me. I think I would have found differently.”

Vera's smile twists, something mean entering the expression. Something dark and flirting with danger. “How would you look upon an opportunity to fix that?”

Wargrave looks up at her, curious. Measuring. Without speaking, his hand settles on the outside of her leg. Fingers brush the back of her knee and she bites back an involuntary shiver and yelp. He smirks at that. 

“Please do elaborate my dear.”

“I was thinking…” She trails off when his hand moves higher, still stroking over her stockings, not yet skin on skin. It’s enough though, to leave her knees almost buckling. She clears her throat, sets her shoulders back. Looks down at him with a confidence she doesn’t entirely feel. “He was a respected man, before the accusations. Someone that you would be glad to call an acquaintance.”

Wargrave tilts his head in agreement, his hand moving to hold her leg more firmly (she feels so small in the grip of his large hand). “In fact, I do believe we have spent time in one another’s company, once upon a time.”

Vera ignores the bubble of excitement forming in her gut. “That will makes things far easier.”

Wargrave regards her with an interest not unlike that which he showed her on the island. For a moment she recalls _air, air, she has to get more air, buy some time, convince him_ but the flash passes her mind before she reveals it. 

“Come, sit.” He says, settling in his chair more firmly. He places the newspaper down beside him. 

Vera hesitates. The nearest chair is her own, the one that matches his. But it is far over by the fireplace and she is not so strong that dragging a heavy piece of furniture is an easy task. Wargrave waits, giving little indication of his intention. She could sit by his feet, she supposes. But that is unpleasantly submissive, and she will never be so. Perching on the arm of the chair would be another option…

Without allowing herself a heartbeat to reconsider Vera takes a few steps to the side and out of his hold, then slowly lowers herself onto his lap. He chuckles, softly, the breath chasing over her neck as she lifts her legs to rest her knees on the arm of the chair. The action makes her skirt fall to the side, revealing the thicker top to her stockings. A hair's breadth to the side and he'd see the clasp of her garter.

She shifts a little more and it appears. Vera smiles to herself and leans back to find his arm waiting to encircle her waist, palm flat under her breast. 

He says nothing, doesn't chide, doesn't praise. His other hand settles on her knee, the thumb rubbing the sensitive curve where it meets her thigh. 

“Should I elaborate?” She asks, looking at his face for the first time since she sat, near enough as close as they've ever been. 

His blue eyes are unnaturally warm as he regards her. “Please.” He says. “I assure you, you have my undivided attention.”

“He must long to regain his reputation.” She begins, pleased with her even voice. “Any invitation, no matter the source, would appeal to that want, that _need_.”

Wargrave’s… Lawrence’s hand moves up, fingertips toying with the clasp against her thigh. He unfastens it without looking. “You mean to invite him here. For dinner?”

Vera nods, her pulse fluttering as his hand now rests on the top of her leg. His fingers extend under the edge of her skirt, patient and unmoving. “He would normally turn it down, of course. The scandal wouldn't be worth his curiosity. But he cannot afford to be picky.”

“And a personal invitation from a judge would assuage people's suspicions. He mustn't be guilty, if I would associate with him.”

Vera smiles, something shaky about it when his hand moves higher. She feels goosebumps rise in its wake. “Precisely. We play to the man's pride.”

The potential turns its way through his cunning mind, his fingers stroking her inner thigh. Her nerves are humming now, the throb back and deepening, down, down, down… 

“Tell me how you see the evening going.”

She jolts, short and sharp, a shock going through her at his words. She hadn't realised she was listing, resting more firmly against his chest. His fingertips are a mere inch from her now and he must feel her growing heat. A part of her wants to shy away, deny her reaction. He remains so aloof, entirely unlike a man with his hand up a woman's skirt, especially when that woman is planning a murder. 

She clears her throat, and there's a tic in his jaw in response. Her unease excites him, she can tell. Can see it in his eyes, recalls its familiarity from… before. 

“He finds us both charming hosts. A fine meal, of course, is served. Conversation is light--.” She pauses to gasp at the feather light press of his middle finger to her underwear. “And clever.”

“Naturally.” 

The agreement comes alongside a more intent stroke and Vera bites back a whine, holding her hips still with every shred of willpower she possesses. “He is at ease, by the time dessert is served. A pleasant evening had by all.”

“My dear, that sounds painfully mundane.” Lawrence says, two fingers pressed hard to her nerve centre. 

Vera holds her breath as his fingers circle, once, twice, then part and capture the bud through the silken barrier. She shifts as the corner of his mouth quirks up, feeling a press against her hip. 

“That.” She breathes, searching for her voice, her strength. “That is the beauty of it.”

He inclines his head, ceding the point for now. 

“When it comes time for you gentlemen to be left alone, I will depart to fetch drinks.”

Lawrence chuckles, his fingers curling to pull her underwear aside. “Yet you hate such convention.”

Vera's teeth clamp down on her lip so hard she fears she might bite clean through it. Lawrence swipes and strokes and teases along her core, gathering wetness and drawing it to her bud. His eyes are like fire and ice all at once as he watches, sees the way she lowers her chin and fights a whimper, remaining defiant. 

“I do.” Her voice is harsh and throaty, tinged with an unfamiliar tone. When he circles a finger around her entrance she exhales heavily, unsteady. “Yet I recognise its necessity.”

He slips a finger inside her and she calls out to the heavens. Lawrence reacts with little more than an exhale but it's warm and welcome on her neck, tickling and kissing at her dampening skin. 

“When I - oh, _please_.” She arches, back tight like a bow string. He simply continues to drive her to madness, the finger inside her pumping slow and shallow. “When I return. Interrupting conversation about how lovely I am, how unlike the stories. I will pass over the brandy with a smile.”

“Cyanide?” Lawrence asks, adding another finger, stretching her more perfectly than she could have imagined. 

She nods, sharp. Shuddering in his lap, her hand clutching his knee. 

“I suppose it gets the job done. Violent, though. Quite unsavoury.”

She huffs, a laugh colouring the air, her nails digging into his slacks. “ _You_ surely can't judge me for the selection?”

He presses his mouth closer now, and she feels his lips against her skin. “I think I am uniquely qualified to do so, Vera.” She cries out as his thumb nudges her nerves, combining with the curve of his fingers to make her hips buck needily. “Besides, you have first hand experience of what an unfortunate mess it would make. You know people talk of us already. What would they say in the case of another death?”

She feels a flush of shame, wants to shrink away but he won't let her. He curls his fingers deep inside, finds something that makes her tremble, gasp, her head falling back. The pleasure is maddening, all at once too much and not enough. She needs him more than she's ever needed anything, she's certain of that even if she's forgotten her own name. 

“Would you like my suggestion?” 

His voice, his deep arousing voice, coils around the haze of desperate pleasure and makes it through to her ears. She can only whimper now, unable to focus on more than his touch, his warm solidity against her. 

“Vera, look at me.”

She does and immediately regrets her choice; seeing the desire in his gaze is almost enough to undo her. Pressure builds in her core, pulsing and impatient, shocks of electricity racing down her limbs. But she holds his gaze. She will not disobey. 

“We invite him to dinner, yes. But not here. A hotel, perhaps, or a less frequented restaurant. Somewhere with fewer people to bear witness to the meeting. He'll think that's for his benefit, when really…”

“It's for _ours_.” Vera whispers. 

“Good, very good.” His praise makes her chuckle, traces shivers down her spine. “We linger over drinks, as you charm him effortlessly. I fetch another round from the bar and--.”

“S-slip in the cyanide.” Vera gasps, shaking now, so far out of control that it sound alarm her. 

Lawrence growls as she starts to come apart, the sound doing nothing to abate her racing pulse, the thrumming in every nerve ending. She bucks helplessly, begging now for him to end it, needing _something_ to tip her over the edge.

“He will die later. Perhaps in his room should he rent one.” Vera moans at his matter of fact statement. “Perhaps in bed, alone. But make no mistake, my dear.”

She pulls tight, just a little more _just a little more_ … 

“He _will_ die.”

Vera comes with a keening shout, body shuddering against the immovable force that is the Judge. He holds her, whispering words she suspects are encouragement but can’t make out through the racing blood and white noise in her head. If she could even remember how to open her eyes she expects she would see his stony face cracked with impossible intrigue, want. She feels him still hard against her in all the places she longs to touch. But can’t. She can’t, not yet.

He continues to stroke her, pulling her to rest against his chest so that he can gather the handkerchief from his breast pocket with his free hand. She blinks a few times, watching, tracking his movements, as he pulls his touch away from between her legs.

Before he can start to wipe his hand, Vera grabs his wrist. He pauses, strong even in her firm grip. Then gives in as she tugs. She brings his fingers to her mouth and groans as she traces her tongue along the length of his index finger, a poor simulation of an act that she would happily perform for him. She sucks the pads of two fingers into her mouth, applying pressure until his eyelids flutter and he smiles, pleased.

“He will die.” She echoes, kissing the tip of each finger that was inside her. She bares her teeth against one of them.

“The first of many, my dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> The response to my first fic for these sinners was more than I could have ever hoped for, so a huge thank you to everyone who enjoyed it. Have some shameless smut for these two that won't leave my head.


End file.
